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When Helayne Scheier was growing up, her father Norman Frajman, never spoke about his experiences in the Warsaw ghetto or the concentration camps of Poland.

“I never even knew the back story, but when he moved to Florida, all of a sudden, he couldn’t stop talking about it,’’ she said.

That’s when Norman joined and ultimately became president of the Child Survivors and Hidden Children of Palm Beach County, Florida.

When Helayne’s father died at age 95 last April, she felt compelled to pick up the torch and tell his story. On April 30, she spoke to residents at Waterstone of Westchester about his experiences.

“The Holocaust survivors are nearly gone. There are so few left. My father wanted kids to be educated by people who had a personal experience of the Holocaust,’’ said Helayne.

Norman’s personal experience was grim. At age 12, he and his family, once prosperous members of the Jewish community in Poland, were stripped of their home and business and sent along with thousands of others to live in the infamous Warsaw Ghetto. The ghetto had 400,000 Jews, and after armed resistance by its population failed, everyone was either killed or shipped off to concentration camps. Norman told Helayne that 400 people were packed into railroad cars big enough to hold about 120 people with only a bucket and no food or water. Many died along the way. When they arrived, Norman was separated from his mother and sister. He later learned that they were marked for immediate extermination because his sister could not work, and his mother refused to leave her.

“My father survived because he was old enough to work. If you couldn’t work, they shot you,’’ said Helayne.

Norman was sent to the Majdanek camp and later worked in the munitions factory before being sent off to Buchenwald.

“As a Jew you held no value. They shaved their heads and bodies and rubbed them with creosote. It burned horribly.” She added, “My father said, you lose all humanity. You have no name, just a number.”

Norman was liberated from Buchenwald on May 8, 1945. On a happy note, Helayne’s grandfather survived his time in a Russian prison camp and made his way to Israel. Norman did not learn of his father’s survival until 1955. They reunited in 1960 when Norman’s father visited the United States.

Helayne said that she felt compelled to start sharing his story. She donated his concentration camp uniform, which he kept as a reminder, to the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center and Museum in Dania Beach, Florida.

“The underlying reason for his presentation was to make people aware of the hate in the world. At the end of his talks, he always said, “I want you to replace the four-letter word hate with the four-letter word love.”

Waterstone of Westchester is the latest best-in-class independent senior living community created by leaders in the field. EPOCH Senior Living is the owner/operator and National Development is the owner/developer. EPOCH Senior Living operates 16 senior living communities in the Northeast. Waterstone of Westchester is the company’s first independent senior living community in New York State. 

For more information about Waterstone of Westchester, visit www.waterstoneofwestchester.com or call 914-821-6369.